DAY 00

[thecomputer]

[Good afternoon, Citizens!

Your consciousness blurrily returns as the transport tube your comatose body was stored in opens up, admitting you access to an unfamiliar room. One wall is covered by vertical tubes, one occasionally sliding open to admit another confused person. The wall across from you has a sign saying "PROCEED TO CENTRAL HUB", with an arrow pointing at a red doorway in the corner. The wall to your right contains an unlabeled, dusty, and poorly-lit hallway with blue walls, floor, and ceiling. You can't see the end from here.

Somewhere on your person, you will find a thin, smartphone-sized object that wasn't there before. One side of it is lit up with a red background and a number of disabled menu items. Most of the screen is taken up by another message saying "PROCEED TO CENTRAL HUB".

What is this place, anyway? And who are these people stumbling in through the transport tube array?]

[[Beyond the three prompts below, anyone may start their own prompts to mingle or go off and do their own thing or whatever else they want!]]

Comments

Central Hub Again!!

[standbyrival]

[WELL WASN'T THAT ANNOUNCEMENT FUN.]

[some may or may not have noticed a tiny purple haired kid mostly sticking to himself and away from the crowd ever since they woke up from their transport pods. while everyone's doing official, polite introductions, he finally speaks up]

Listen up! Instead of shaking hands and trying to pin down who's going to be your new best buddy here, you all better be taking this sci-fi novel reject of an experiment seriously. It's pretty stupidly obvious we don't belong here, and I don't know or care about you guys, but I intend to play this straight and get back home.

If you're going to waste time "getting to know" each other, I suggest you sort out who's the dead weight and who wants to win.

[harshwords]

Well, aren't you the pleasant one.

[ Her voice is dripping with sarcasm at this point as she stares Paul down with a menacing, yet "I'm superior than you" glare. ]

[standbyrival]

[he glares right back up at her, but let's be real, it's hard to take someone as tiny as he is seriously. in any case, he's pretty unphased]

Hardly. If there's anyone truly pleasant here, I'm going to pity them here and now.

[harshwords]

Then you should be glad. The only one I've met who seems relatively pleasant is the selfless idiot over there.

[ She'll gesture to where ever Seryu is, if she's in the general vicinity still. ]

As far as I know, anyway.

[standbyrival]

[he just gives a slow blink over toward her general direction]

Either she'll be the first to kick the bucket or she'll snap when it turns out being selfless won't accomplish anything.

[harshwords]

Well, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if either of those things happened. She told me that she'd give herself up if she were chosen as a Communist.

[ Not that she's taking those words at face value, but with the way she said, well. ]

[standbyrival]

I'm not going to complain if she does. "Citizens" are going to have a major advantage in numbers over the other team, but they're also going to look really stupid if they manage to let five people fool them. It'd be a benefit to everyone if someone so flippant about their own life was eliminated early on.

[harshwords]

I won't either if I'm not on the side of the Communists. I think it's a stupid tactical move to just off yourself just because more people will survive that way.

[standbyrival]

It's not even tactical, it's just stupid all on itself. There's not even a guarantee a sacrifice like that would even work. That kind of thinking is foolish and selfish, no matter how noble anyone thinks they're being.

[harshwords]

It honestly wouldn't work, because the game would still continue regardless unless they were the last Communist alive.

[standbyrival]

Pretty much. [a light snort] I guess it's safe to say a few of you do have some common sense.

[harshwords]

If I didn't, I'd be showing off by now.

[standbyrival]

Showing off?

[respring]

[ sakura winces at his choice of words, but eventually nods ]

As much as I'd rather not participate, they aren't leaving us with much of a choice. Did anyone else see the guns in the blue corridor? I don't think they'd hesitate to shoot us down if we didn't leave.

Which means, the most straightforward path is probably to do what they ask of us.

[standbyrival]

[he gives a nod]

Exactly. If you're going to die, you might as well do so trying to survive. Whoever set this up probably had way too much time on their hands, and I'm not exactly thrilled about playing their twisted little game, but I'm not about to throw away my life trying to pull some stupid escape stunt.

[fullonbraced]

HOLD IT!

What the crud, man! You're gonna throw people away like they're bad art?!

[standbyrival]

[very flatly:]

Yes.

[fullonbraced]

WHAAAT?! What's your deal!?

[standbyrival]

Stop yelling.

I don't want to die, and I want this dumb "exercise" to be over as quickly as possible.

[fullonbraced]

So you're just going to kill people? What the heck, man! That's horrible!

[You're younger than her and plotting murder]

[standbyrival]

Why are you still shouting. . .

I'm not going to kill anyone directly. It looks like there's going to be a ballot. Did you read them at all?

[plentyfriendly]

Isn't it a little early for that?

[It is a valid question...]

The rules say we're going to be split into two teams, but that hasn't happened yet.

[And if he's so smart, he can figure out the rest for himself, right?]

[standbyrival]

As far as I'm concerned, the exercise has already started. Does it even matter what team you end up on? The end result is the same. You survive, you go home. You lose, you're dead. It's as simple as that.

[plentyfriendly]

I have no intention of dying.

[Even if she's not sure what she'd be getting back to.]

[standbyrival]

[he snorts]

Then congrats, you've started playing "a little early" too. There's nothing wrong with treating this as what it actually is.